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Shakespeare shaken up — a reimagined, decolonised ‘Othello’ resists all the tropes and stereotypes

Marianne Thamm
By Marianne Thamm
21 Apr 2024
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Younger theatre goers are getting an education in Shakespeare that can only lead to yet another generation of Bard lovers. This time, they can love him because they identify deeply with his work.

Shakespeare, like good animation, offers two layers of engagement. And, like many of his plays, the story of Othello, the Moor of Venice, is a superficially simple one.

A man among strangers, loved unconditionally by Desdemona, against her father’s wishes, and hated for his race by the diabolic Iago, the tragedy of Othello skims along, apparently like a soap opera.

We all know an Iago, the toxic individual who delights in manipulating others with false information, lies and deceit. They loom large in today’s global political landscapes, corporate boardrooms and private homes.

“A snake in the flower,” as Shakespeare expert Harold C Goddard opined, adding that “only a consummate actor can render him”.

Well, wait until you see what actor Albert Pretorius does with Iago, the play’s antagonist, in Lara Foot’s adaptation of the work, now on at the Baxter Theatre Centre until 4 May. More on Pretorius later.

Why this adaptation by Foot matters is simply this: it is often monolingual English-speaking purists of a certain age who demand that Shakespeare be performed as written in the setting as described.

Heads on pikes on London Bridge


When Shakespeare opened his Globe Theatre in 1599 (named after Sir Francis Drake, who had circumnavigated the world between December 1577 and September 1580), Elizabethans would walk past human heads on pikes on London Bridge. The plague and “pestilence” were rife in Stratford. Shakespeare himself was a survivor.

Neil MacGregor’s excellent Shakespeare’s Restless World describes the public theatres of London as “an entirely new form of (very commercial) entertainment, aimed at every section of society”.

Julian Bowsher, a senior specialist at the Museum of London Archaeology, noted that there were no toilets in theatres at the time.

“We have a nasty suspicion that the dark corners were used by men. There is some evidence that ladies would take some sort of bottle with them. For more serious defecation, the theatregoers would have to go outside somewhere, possibly the riverside,” he wrote.

Read more in Daily Maverick: Decolonising Shakespeare: setting Othello in Ghana and Pericles in Glasgow

Growing up as philistines in the back streets of Pretoria in the 1970s, we were taught that Shakespeare was the height of “Western” culture “high literature”.

In retrospect, it is understandable that none of us understood the spoken language as so beautifully written by Shakespeare and that we had to levitate out of boredom during earnest “classic” productions.

It was only while travelling in Europe and experiencing what playwrights like Tom Lanoye can do with Shakespeare that I understood that the joy and the extraordinary and eternal lessons of this remarkable author lie in constant reinterpretation. In 1999, Lanoye and actor-director-playwright Luk Perceval served up a 12-hour marathon Shakespeare production, Ten Oorlog! based on The War of the Roses, in archaic Flemish and Dutch.

‘Othello’ in Namibia


Of course, Baxter theatregoers who will sit through almost three hours (with an interval) of Foot’s masterful adaptation will do so transported by production designer Gerhard Marx’s conjuring of German South West Africa after the Berlin Conference of 1884-85, and the later genocide of the Herero and Nama people.

The score by Kyle Shepherd grounds the spectacle and tickles the imagination, while lighting designer Patrick Curtis conjures the desert light.

Colonial Namibia is the ideal setting for this story that Foot has reimagined. Would Othello really kill Desdemona, or is this just the eternal stereotype of the “violent black man” repeated through the ages?

And so it is that Atandwa Kani inhabits this gentle warrior Othello, strong but vulnerable enough to surrender his heart to love. How can he not?

Sweet Desdemona (Carla Smith) sees his soul, understands his mettle.

The trilingualism of the text, with the Afrikaans by Anna Neethling-Pohl and monologues by Wessel Pretorius, and isiXhosa translations by Sanele Ntshingana and Anele Kose, catapults the story into deeper realms. Darker rivers of consciousness of our continent and its colonial history, pain and degradation are always there close to the surface, beneath the noise of Iago’s poisoned tongue.

Read more in Daily Maverick: Lara Foot’s captivating adaptation of Othello is an emotional journey highlighting Africa’s colonial past

Speaking of Iago, Pretorius is the Al Pacino, the Robin Williams, the Meryl Streep of South African theatre, film and television, or wherever he pops up. He has the unique quality of being able to empty himself and allow whichever character he plays to fill him to the brim. And we all love a bad guy, don’t we? We also love watching him fall on his guava.

This cast, this Iago, this Othello, this Desdemona, this Emilia (Faniswa Yisa), Cassio (Carlo Daniels), Roderigo (Wessel Pretorius) and the rest of the characters kept the 23-year-old man who accompanied me to this performance riveted.

He is not a regular theatregoer, and like the young me, not a fan of Shakespeare at that age, although one would not dare admit it. Not once did he reach for his phone or try to sneak a peek (no matter how taboo in the theatre). He loudly exclaimed when Iago shared his treacherous plans with the audience.

Iago is a “vark” (pig); he is a “gangster” and a familiar character in the world.

And what Foot does to twist the classic ending all makes sense. This is an immersive theatrical experience that feeds various appetites as it unfurls: the eyes, the mind, the heart, the emotions and, finally, understanding. DM

This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R35.

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